


The Crackpots and These Women

by chaletian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-25
Updated: 2010-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's known the Harvelles a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crackpots and These Women

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a West Wing Title challenge on LJ.

I've known Ellen Harvelle, well, now, close on to forty years. Knew her daddy. He was a fine man, and I was proud to call him a friend. Ellen, she was a sweet kid. Stubborn as a mule, of course, but sweet with it. I recall how she was when she was in high school, all brains and sass. Her daddy died when she was in her junior year, and it hit 'em pretty hard. Ellen was an only child, and it was just her'n her mother. Now, Claire, she was a good woman, but she didn't have much in the way of backbone, and it sorta fell to Ellen to keep things straight. I guess that's why she didn't go to college like Ted wanted.

She met Bill Harvelle a coupla years after she graduated high school. I tried to talk her out of it, honest to God. Not that I had much of anything against Bill, but he ran that old roadhouse, and you could tell straight off it weren't no place for a girl like Ellen. She deserved better, and I reckon Bill knew that, cause he never could look me in the eye. But Ellen always did go her own sweet way, and Claire had just up and died, and there wasn't anything for her to stick around for. And she sure was crazy about Bill.

I'm not going to say he didn't treat her right, because I know Ellen, and I know what she would and wouldn't put up with. So I'll admit that she seemed pretty happy, even in that roadhouse. I drove by a couple of times a month, just to keep an eye on her, though she told me not to. Jack, she said, in that tone of hers, Jack, I'm not going to have you troubling yourself coming way out here all the time. Ellen, I said, can't a man come to a roadhouse and get a drink without some damn woman fussin' over him? And she'd laugh, and pour me a drink, and I'd know she was doing OK.

Then little Jo came on the scene. I'm not a sentimental man, but I sure am fond of that little girl. And she was a pistol, right from the start. Had everyone wrapped round her little finger, specially her daddy. Bill Harvelle, I reckon he'd do pretty near anything for his girl. So, there they were, the three of him, happy as crickets in that damned roadhouse.

I'd always known there was something hinky about it. Place looked like it would fall down if you blew hard, and who the heck built something like that way out there? Fifteen miles from the nearest town if it was a foot. And the crowd it collected – well, I was never happy seeing Ellen serving back of that bar, and I won't hesitate to say it. That was a pretty scary bunch of men, and no mistake. Hard, they was. Looked as like to kill you as shake your hand. Ellen, she said I was imagining it, that they were just men, no better or worse than anyone else.

I didn't like her back of that bar, and when Bill died, I liked it even less, but she wouldn't listen to me. She stayed, and Jo grew up there, and that clientele didn't get any less peculiar. I believe in the Constitution and I believe in the right to bear arms, but I damn sure don't believe in the need to carry around a goddamn armoury, which is sure as heck what some of those crackpots were doing. I don't know, maybe they were some of those survivalist types, those ones who reckon we don't need the government for anything. Maybe. I just don't know.

I was up at the roadhouse, not so long ago, looking in to see those women. Ellen's still stubborn as hell, and Jo's still got a mouth on her, and they've still got their crazy customers. New ones, this time, coupla boys I didn't recognise. That older one, he scared me, I ain't afraid to say it. No boy should have a look in his eyes like that. I don't talk to Ellen about it, know it won't make no nevermind to her. She was a sweet kid. I sure do wish I didn't have to see her back of that bar.

THE END


End file.
